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Showing posts by David Isbitski

Amazon Fire phone is the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and Firefly. Dynamic Perspective is an entirely new sensor system that responds to the way a customer holds, views and moves the phone. The Dynamic Perspective SDK gives developers access to algorithms that identify the X, Y and Z coordinates of the head, enabling a whole new class of apps and games. Firefly quickly recognizes things in the real world—web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, movies, music, and millions of products, and lets the user take action in seconds—all with the simple press of the Firefly button. With the Firefly SDK, developers can extend the use of the Firefly button to enable new actions their users can take based on what they identify.

Here is a recap of helpful Fire phone posts on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog in 2014:

Each November, Amazon holds the re:Invent developer conference and this year there were several sessions designed for mobile developers and the Fire phone. The slides and videos are now live so if you weren’t able to make it to the conference you can still get the content right here.

Recorded live at AWS re:Invent 2014 this free video will introduce you to Fire the first phone designed by Amazon. You will learn about the new customer experiences it enables and how top developers have updated their Android apps to take advantage of Fire phone.

We shared an overview of the AWS Mobile SDK and how to get started. The AWS Mobile SDK helps bring the power of the cloud to your apps while enabling you to build high quality mobile apps quickly and easily across multiple platforms including iOS, Android and Fire OS.

We announced new support for web apps submission to the Amazon Appstore giving you the option to submit self-contained, packaged web apps that run on Amazon devices including Fire TV and Fire phone. You can now submit your web app as a standard zipfile in addition to the existing hosted web app solution or have web apps in the Amazon Appstore that use both.

Have an Android app already but not sure where to start with Fire phone? We offer plenty of tips and tricks to get your app quickly up and running on Fire phone and how take advantage of its new capabilities.

We unveiled Fire, the first phone designed by Amazon. Fire is the first and only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and Firefly. With Fire Develop SDKs available now, these new technologies enable you to create more immersive experiences in your apps and games that increase user engagement.

For more information about getting started with Fire phone, check out the following additional assets:

Here is a quick recap of new posts for the Holiday weeks ending January 2nd on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog. Happy New Year!

Tuesday, December 23rd

Reaching New Android Customers with Xamarin and Amazon Fire TV

Special guest Mike Bluestein walked us through getting your own apps and games running on Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick with Xamarin Studio. Using the same C# language you love and the power of Xamarin you can now reach millions of potential new Amazon customers.

Wednesday, December 24th

Part 4: When Do Users Purchase?

In part 4 of an ongoing monetization series, we cover when customers in the Top 50 Games in the Amazon Appstore typically make purchases.

Monday, December 29th

Free Video Training – Amazon Developer Day Workshop at GDC Europe

We unlocked the GDC Vaults and made our Amazon Developer Day content free to watch! This invite only workshop includes everything you need to get your apps and games into the Amazon ecosystem and scalable with Amazon Web Services.

Tuesday, December 30th

Live App Testing Service: How to Start, Test and Complete a Live App Test

We covered the recent launch of Amazon’s Live App Testing Service and how you can you use it to quickly distribute your own apps for beta testing. Leverage the power of your audience to eliminate issues before you go live.

Wednesday, December 31st

Part 5: Stats That the Top 50 Know

In part 5 of an ongoing monetization series, we cover what important purchase statistics the Top 50 Games in the Amazon Appstore have found out about their customers buying habits.

As an end of the year gift to all of our readers we have unlocked the GDC Vaults and made our Amazon Developer Day content free to watch! Recorded live at GDC Europe in Cologne, Germany this invite only workshop includes everything you need to get your apps and games into the Amazon ecosystem. You will learn first-hand from Amazon developer evangelists about the Amazon Appstore, Fire phone, Fire Tablets and Amazon Fire TV. You will also learn how to build your own scalable mobile game backend using Amazon Web Services. So pull up a chair, sit back, relax and enjoy this free developer workshop. Happy Holidays!

Launching Enhanced Games on Fire Phone

This session will get you up and running with Android Studio and Amazon’s Dynamic Perspective and Firefly SDKs. See how you can quickly add 3D elements to your existing Android games with minimal coding. Multiple code samples are covered as well as live demos on Amazon Fire devices.

Reach Customers in the Living Room with Fire TV

This session will show how you can get your existing Android games running on Fire TV. Setting up the developer environment, debugging on the Fire TV, tuning for the living room experience and publishing to the Amazon Appstore are all covered.

Xamarin is a cross platform development environment that leverages the power of the C# programming language and takes full advantage of native hardware acceleration. Xamarin generates fully native code for each mobile platform instead of translating at runtime. Because Xamarin apps are built with standard, native user interface controls apps not only look the way the end user expects, they behave that way too. Xamarin also includes a suite of tools that allow you to test, build, and analyze your apps across all of the major mobile platforms. Utilizing Xamarin you can now publish your own apps and games to all Amazon Fire devices. This includes Amazon Fire tablets, Amazon Fire phone, Amazon Fire TV and the recently announced Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Please join me in welcoming special guest Mike Bluestein, who as a Developer Evangelist for Xamarin, helps developers be successful with the Xamarin platform. Mike is going to walk us through the steps to get your own apps and games running on Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick with Xamarin Studio.

Getting Started

The version of Amazon FireOS that runs on Fire TV is based on Android Jelly Bean (API Level 17), so you can take your existing Android skills and code there by just targeting API 17. In fact, without even using the Amazon Fire TV SDK, you can run most API 17 apps without much modification. This of course depends on what you use.

The Amazon Fire TV SDK Add-on is available in the Android SDK Manager via an Add-on site, as described in the Amazon documentation. Once added, it appears under API 17:

To develop with Xamarin, the Xamarin component store includes an Amazon Fire TV component, which includes support for Amazon notification and game controller APIs respectively:

However, as mentioned, API 17 will work even without using the component. Try it yourself.

Create a Hello World app that targets Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

Connect to the Fire TV (or Fire TV Stick) via adb:

adb connect [Fire TV IP Address]

Select the Amazon AFTM (API 17) from the Devices dropdown and run:

The app will deploy to the Fire TV device and you’ll be able to debug within Xamarin Studio just like any other Android application.

The Fire TV remote maps to normal Android keystroke handling. Therefore tapping the center button results in a button click in the Hello World app:

Building an app

When developing for Fire TV devices, you’ll want to design especially for it. For example, here’s a simple photo viewer of the Conceptdev Monkeys. It has adequate thumbnail size and padding around the screen edges so that the user can see it fine from a few meters away.

The user can easily navigate between monkeys using the remote. When selected a large view of the monkey is displayed.

What’s really great, from a programming perspective, is this is just Android. Therefore all your skills move forward.

Build a Game

Apps are great, but Fire TV devices really shine in its ability to bring Android games to the TV.

I previously blogged about a simple space game I made for the Fire TV Stick, using CocosSharp, where I used the remote to control the spaceship. Let’s take a look at how to extend the game to use an Amazon Fire TV controller with the GameController API.

To use the GameController API (available in the Xamarin component) you have to:

Forward any keystrokes and/or generic motion events to the controller.

Gather input from the game controller in your game loop.

CocosSharp games build upon MonoGame, which on Android uses the AndroidGameActivity. To use the game controller API, you must call GameController.Init after setting the ContentView:

In this case, we’ll be using the right joystick of the game controller to move the ship around the screen in any direction. Therefore, we need to forward generic motion events to the controller:

With this in place we can get input from the controller in the game layer and move the ship accordingly:

Then when we run the game, the ship moves via the right joystick:

The Amazon Fire TV family of devices and the associated SDK are fun to develop for. You can use your existing skills and resources and open the doors to a world of potential new customers!

One of the things to remember is that you’ll want to design your applications with the TV experience in mind. Applications designed for a phone won’t have a great experience on a large TV where people sit several meters away and interact via remotes and controllers, as opposed to touch.

For additional tips on optimizing Android apps for the TV experience be sure to check out this free video and this blog post. For more information about getting started with Xamarin Studio and Amazon Fire devices, check out the following additional resources:

We announced a new version of the Amazon Maps API, offering an even richer customer experience with 3D vector maps, 3D landmarks, drawing API’s, fragments, multiple maps, and more.

Report: Amazon Reaches (Big) Spenders Best

According to a report from Newzoo, gamers using the Amazon Appstore are the most likely to spend money. More specifically, 64% of mobile gamers that use the Amazon Appstore spend money on mobile games, versus 37% for Google Play.

Wednesday, December 17th

How the Top 50 Engage Users and Drive Revenue Two Weeks after Install

Mike Hines covers how customers in the Top 50 Games in the Amazon Appstore go about purchasing In App Items two weeks after a customer first installs the game.

Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending December 5th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.

Monday, December 1st

re:Invent Slides and Videos Now Live

Each November, Amazon holds the re:Invent developer conference and this year there were several sessions designed for mobile developers. The slides and videos are now live so if you weren’t able to make it to the conference you can still get the content right here.

Tuesday, December 2nd

Reach More Customers on Fire Tablets with Facebook Ads

We announced developers will now be able to target Fire tablet customers with Facebook mobile app ads. When a customer is in the Facebook mobile app or on Facebook on mobile web on their Fire tablet, they will see an ad for your app with a call to action.

Wednesday, December 3rd

Why Isn't Your Game Doing Better?

We shared tips on optimizing In-App Purchasing in your own games based on what the Top 50 Games in the Amazon Appstore are doing successfully today.

With Amazon Fire TV customers can now enjoy your mobile apps and game through a console-like experience on the big screen. Recorded live at MoDev Wearables and Things this free video will introduce you to Amazon Fire TV and what you need to do to get your apps ready.

With Amazon Fire TV customers can now enjoy your mobile apps and game through a console-like experience on the big screen. Before you publish your app or game there are some important things you will need to consider.

Recorded live at MoDev Wearables and Things this free video will introduce you to Amazon Fire TV and what you need to do to get your apps ready. What does your app’s 10 foot experience look like, how will your touch controls convert to a controller based experience, how will you sync game progress across all of your players devices, and what are the TV-specific gotchas like overscan. This session will get you started with Amazon’s free Fire TV developer SDK and provide plenty of tips for getting your app up and running. Both Android Studio and Xamarin Studio will also be covered showing how you can target Fire TV using the same familiar developer environment.

Click the image below to see the full video:

Come Join Us at MoDevCon 2014

The Amazon Appstore team will be at MoDevCon 2014 next week. From the MoDev conference site “Now in its fourth year, ModevCon (formerly ModevEast) is must-attend for anyone developing, designing, and marketing mobile apps, websites and related products. For two days, you'll connect with the people, content and platforms that matter most.” Stop by the Amazon booth to get one on one help from a developer evangelist and test out your Android app on a Fire device.

Getting started with Fire TV on Android Studio and Xamarin Studio

For more information about getting started with Xamarin Studio and Amazon Fire devices, check out the following additional resources:

Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending November 21st on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.

Monday, November 17th

AWS re:Invent 2014 Wrap-Up: See You next Year!

We concluded our AWS re:Invent coverage with a look at the Amazon Appstore Hardware Zone, Fire TV Zone, and Firefly Zone showcases that were on hand for attendees during the conference.

Tuesday, November 18th

Special Offer for AnDevCon Attendees

We announced the Amazon Appstore team at AndDevCon San Francisco, and the opportunity to test your apps first hand on Amazon Fire devices.

Wednesday, November 19th

Indie Developer Ustwo Share Their Insights on Making Monument Valley and Forgotten Shores

Monument Valley: Forgotten Shores just went live on the Amazon Appstore as an Android exclusive. Dan Gray, Executive Producer of the game, reflects on his experience and offers helpful tips to developers.

Friday, November 21st

Free Video Training – Everything You Need to Know about Building Apps for the Fire Phone

Recorded live at AWS re:Invent 2014 this free video will introduce you to Fire the first phone designed by Amazon. You will learn about the new customer experiences it enables and how top developers have updated their Android apps to take advantage of Fire phone.

Recorded live at AWS re:Invent 2014 this free video will introduce you to Fire the first phone designed by Amazon. You will learn about the new customer experiences it enables and how top developers have updated their Android apps to take advantage of Fire phone. Learn about the hardware, the services, and the development SDK including Enhanced Carousel, Firefly and Dynamic Perspective, Appstore Developer Select, submitting to the Amazon Appstore, and Best Practices for developing great Fire apps.

Now Is the Time to Submit Your Apps for Fire

Create immersive apps that respond to the way a customer holds, views and moves the phone. We have updated Appstore Developer Select, Amazon Mobile Ads API, and Amazon Testing Services with more incentives:

We shared a new chart from Vision Mobile showing a high developers above the app poverty line versus other platforms. More specifically, 59% of developers distributing their apps on the Amazon Appstore make more than $500 per month versus less than 50% on other platforms.

Tuesday, November 11th

Amazon Cloud Drive Now Accessible via Rest Based API

We announced the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive API platform. This new RESTful interface allows uploading, downloading, manipulation and organization of cloud drive data in the cloud. You can use this API to integrate these services in your app offering additional flexibility for your users.

Wednesday, November 12th

Amazon Appstore at AWS re:Invent 2014: Day One

We recapped Day One of the Amazon Appstore team at AWS re:Invent including the AWS Hackathon Challenge and the Appstore Gaming Lounge.

Thursday, November 13th

Amazon Appstore at AWS re:Invent 2014: Day Two

We recapped Day Two of the Amazon Appstore team at AWS: re:Invent including two of the Fire Devices sessions.

Friday, November 14th

Amazon Appstore at AWS re:Invent 2014: Day Three

We recapped the final day of the Amazon Appstore team at AWS: re:Invent.

The sold out AWS re:Invent 2014 conference started yesterday and the Amazon Appstore team was on site to meet and help developers during the week. We kicked off Tuesday by taking part in the AWS Hackathon and set up a gaming lounge for you to get hands on with the latest Amazon Fire device and games. Tomorrow starts the Fire devices track so if you are looking for more in depth material on Fire OS devices be sure to stop on by. You can see a full list of tracks here.

AWS Hackathon Challenge

Over 100 developers came together the morning before the first Keynote for a great cause. Developers worked with non-profits to help them solve some of their problems through IT Challenges – like building a web or mobile app, helping to make data more accessible, or creating an interactive web-based visualization for a charity’s website.

Teams formed early in the morning and then aligned themselves to four different challenges they could take on. These challenges included building solutions for Nasa, Cancer Research UK, UN Global Pulse and Atrocity Watch.

Atrocity Watch Challenge

AtrocityWatch is an award-winning two-year-old organization dedicated to the use of Big Data for the prediction and prevention of atrocities. There is a whole community of humanitarians who have dedicated their lives to the prevention of atrocities, but the tools they have at their disposal are very limited. Atrocity Watch’s mission is to help humanitarians achieve their goals, and to keep people safe.

The developer challenge was to create a mobile computing solution which can help keep individuals safe through geofencing, crowdsourcing, threshold based alerts, and/or other means. Using public datasets, dev’s built a static or dynamic geofence that keeps people safe without revealing their location to the bad guys.

UN Global Pulse

UN Global Pulse’s mission is to identify “digital signals” which enable the UN to respond to emerging crises and changing social issues globally. Global Pulse is working to promote awareness of the opportunities Big Data presents for relief and development, forge public-private data sharing partnerships, generate high-impact analytical tools and approaches through its network of Pulse Labs, and drive broad adoption of useful innovations across the UN System.

The developer challenge was to create a tool that mines text data from open sources or data sets and social media to show how people around the world feel about a range of social issues ranging from health, to food prices, unemployment or the environment.

NASA JPL challenge

The Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity have been on the move capturing fantastic photos of the Red planet for years. The Mars image data repository, stored in Amazon’s S3, is updated daily, and holds all the images ever taken on Mars by the rovers.

The developer challenge was to build an application that identifies important features in these images, such as rover tracks, meteorites, and even the moons of Mars! All of the source data is publicly accessible to the world, making it ideal for building the coolest crowdsourcing application in the solar system.

CRUK challenge

Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research. It has saved millions of lives by discovering new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer; survival has doubled over the past 40 years. Race for Life is Cancer Research UK’s main fundraising event and has been running for the past 20 years.

The developer challenge was to design a highly innovative mobile registration application for the race. Poor mobile conversion is currently costing Cancer Research UK millions of dollars each year; an effortless mobile registration process would help correct this.

Figure 1 - Congrats to the winner of the AWSHackathon supporting NASA exploration of Mars

The hackathon did not require any previous experience and it was great to talk to developers from all over coming together for a really good cause!

Amazon Appstore Gaming Lounge

Looking to get some hands on experience with the latest Amazon Devices? We have set up a full developer lounge this year complete with Fire TV stations, the latest Fire tablets and multiple Fire phones all on hand for you to play with.

Figure 2 - Amazon Appstore Gaming Lounge

If you are at the event be sure to stop on by booth #835 located on the Main Expo Floor halfway through the midway. Look for the big gaming stations! Our Developer Evangelists will be at the booth all week too offering help and guidance around submitting and monetizing your apps with the Amazon Appstore.

Figure 3 - Playing some Sonic on Fire TV

All attendees are eligible to take a spin on our “swag wheel” giving you a chance to win multiple prizes including tshirts and an Amazon Appstore nerf rocket.

Fire Device Track

Don’t forget the Amazon Fire device track kicks off today! Come learn from customers and Amazon experts how to create Fire phone, Fire TV and Kindle Fire apps. We’ll go into depth on how to create applications that react to customer actions with Fire phone’s Dynamic Perspective and Firefly technologies. You’ll also hear how to reach new audiences with Fire TV. Top mobile developers will share their tips on monetizing and you’ll get behind-the-scenes details from the Amazon engineers who build our technologies. You can see a full list of tracks here.

Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending October 31st on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.

Monday, October 27th

Reach More Customers in the Living Room with Amazon Fire Stick

We announced Fire TV Stick, a tiny stick that connects to the HDMI port on your HDTV for instant access to movies, TV shows, music, photos, apps, and games. By submitting yours apps for Amazon Fire TV they will be available to new customers when Fire TV Stick ships on November 19th!

Are you a C# developer looking to publish your apps and games across multiple mobile platforms? Did you know that Xamarin fully supports Amazon’s growing ecosystem of devices including Kindle Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire phone.

At Xamarin Evolve 2014 this month I facilitated a session on building native Amazon Fire phone, Fire TV, and Fire Tablet apps with Xamarin Studio (Click the image below to see the video).

This free video will walk you through how to quickly use Xamarin to run your apps and games on Amazon devices, as well as provide an overview of Amazon Appstore services that help developers get their app discovered and increase customer engagement and monetization. Now is the time! Using the same C# language you love and the power of Xamarin you can reach millions of potential new Amazon customers.

For more information about getting started with Xamarin Studio and Amazon Fire devices, check out the following additional resources: